First Man (Review)
First Man is a Technical Marvel but Misses the Mark on Emotions.
In a lot of ways, First Man reminds me a lot of the trips I used to take as a kid to visits NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. It’s technically astounding, awe-inspiring, and kinda boring for the most part. There’s little doubt in my mind that this film is going to rack up a ton of technical awards, but when it comes to the performances and the overall feeling of the film, this is far from my first choice for Best Picture. Putting aside it’s worth as far as award’s go, First Man is a marvelous film and one that should be seen by anyone who wants to explore the trials and tribulations that came with one of man’s greatest achievements of all time.
Ryan Gosling leads a pretty stellar cast who don’t exactly do stellar jobs with the roles they’re given. He plays American hero Neil Armstrong who pulled double duty working as an engineer and pilot for NASA during the early days of the Gemini and Apollo programs. While a lot of the film focuses on the work he does for the sake of space exploration, First Man also looks at the toll that his job takes on his family. It’s in these ways that it forces the audience to keep Armstrong at arm’s length because, well, he’s kind of a crappy dad according to this movie. He becomes consumed with the work that takes him away from his wife, Claire Foy, who turns in a stunning performance and easily outshines every one of her male counterparts (and is one of my first choices for the Best Actress category), and children. There’s no arguing that Armstrong isn’t a brilliant man by the end of this film, but he proves to be an emotionally stunted one as well. At least, that’s what Gosling’s performance would lead us to believe.
First Man proves to be a huge departure from director Damien Chazelle’s previous, musically inspired works (Whiplash and La La Land) and I’m not so certain he was the best pick to helm a period piece about America’s crowning Cold War achievement. His past works proved to be emotion fueled roller coaster rides and First Man is more cold and calculating. In a lot of ways, this feels as though it were a film put together by engineers. It follows the rules of storytelling, but it feels emotionless and hollow in a lot of moments that should have brought audiences to tears. Take for example the scene before Neil Armstrong leaves to go to the moon (spoiler alert they make it to the moon and back). He’s sitting with his wife and children and after speaking with them he shakes his son’s hand. Then again, I guess that’s how a man was expected to act back in the days of buzz cuts and skinny ties.
The real star of First Man though is cinematographer Linus Sandgren who takes an almost documentary-style approach to the way he composes the visual storytelling of the movie. The film itself is grainy and has a dated feel that reminded me of the films I enjoyed from the 60’s, which creates a warm feeling to offset the emotionally hollow characters. It’s because of this choice in the film that the visual effects are so outstanding as well and I can say that First Man is one of the most visually stunning films of the year. Everything from the early test flights to the actual Apollo 11 mission looks gorgeous. Of course, visuals are only half the “picture” when it comes to movies. Luckily, the sound design and mixing are just as spectacular. You can’t help but feel the anxiety those first astronauts must have felt sitting on hundreds of thousands of gallons of fuel as the rocket creaks and groans under the strain of just sitting upright on the launch pad. It’s not quite as freaky as, say, Gravity, but it’s just as much of a spectacle and deserves to be seen in IMAX.
While I might have had some problems sympathizing with Neil Armstrong and, though to a lesser degree, Buzz Aldrin (played by Corey Stoll), I did greatly enjoy First Man. It’s a compelling tale of what man is capable of achieving and I doubt any scientific advancement since then is as worthy of a film adaptation. These were men who not only sat down and did the math but also put their lives on the line in pursuit of their dreams of getting to the moon. It’s a story that deserves to be told on the biggest screen possible, and Chazelle delivers on the doing the sheer scale of such an undertaking justice. However, I was hoping that it takes a note from the classic Apollo 13 movie and give us characters that we could all really get behind and root for. Instead, First Man felt more like a lecture or an educational film that might be featured in a museum.
I’ve been a bit hard on First Man, but let me be clear that it is a very good film.In fact, it’s one of the best of the year. However, it doesn’t have the special something that leaves you feeling good and fulfilled at the end. It’s got an outstanding cast, a dramatic story and manages to be one of the most technically dazzling movies of the year (that don’t feature a giant purple space invader or cousins fighting for a throne). But it doesn’t feel like it is a movie that is going to capture the audience’s hearts. Because of that I wholeheartedly recommend seeing the movie, but I for one probably won’t be eager to see it again for years to come. The good news is that it’s ok to take a bathroom break or two during it’s nearly two and a half hour runtime because at the end of the day you know exactly how First Man is going to end.
